Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation/housekeeping

This is the housekeeping talk page of WikiProject Sri Lanka Reconciliation, a bipartisan effort to improve collaboration on and coverage of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Please do not edit this page unless you are a member or you want to become one. To become a member, please apply in the Applications section below.

/archive

Members and other related issues

This is the talk section for the section WP:SLR#Members.

Applications

Older applications are archived.

Please copy the text from the box below and add it at the bottom of this section. You may add some text why you want to join, but this is not necessary. People may come here to ask you questions, so please keep this page on your watchlist.

===={{User|Your_User_Name}}====

Chamal_N (talk · contribs)

I've been around for a long time, and have made small edits to the articles within the project's scope. I think it's time to take a more active role now. Chamal ^talk 13:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support: Of course! — Sebastian 18:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support: Good addition to the project. Watchdogb (talk) 00:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Accepted - As there has been no objection, I will add Chamal to our member list and leave a message on the talk page. — Sebastian 23:48, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Riotrocket8676 (talk · contribs)

I am part Sri Lankan, and I want to help make Wikipedia a good place. I want to take an active role. I am new, but I am working on becoming familiar with WP. Riotrocket8676 (talk) 15:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support why not Kanatonian (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support Editing history looks very good, checked some random contributions, very sound. Also I think that some more Sinhalese input would be nice. Jasy jatere (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support The description this user gives of themself matches the impression I have from the contributions. — Sebastian 20:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support: Met him working on the Battle of Kilinochchi (2008–2009) article. Good editor, neutral. Chamal ^talk 00:19, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support: I have no objection for this membership. Watchdogb (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Accepted 5 supports and 0 oppose! Welcome to the project. Watchdogb (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Snowolfd4 (talk · contribs)

As membership seems to be required to have any say in decisions related to editing Sri Lanka related articles, I'm applying for membership. --snowolfD4 ^{( talk / @ )} 20:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support, as someone who invited him to join. — Sebastian 21:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I have seen this user at work and he does some great work on articles under the project's scope. No objections here. Riotrocket8676 (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support Watchdogb (talk) 15:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support Jasy jatere (talk) 16:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Accepted No opposition and all support and add 48 hours to that means we have a new member . Welcome Snowolfd4 Watchdogb (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Blackknight12 (talk · contribs)

Hi,
I've been editing on Wikipedia for around a year now and it has been almost everything related to Sri Lanka, I'm interested in joining this group because it can help me better the articles on Sri Lanka. Blackknight12 (talk) 05:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support: Well, I invited him. Looks to me like a good editor. Chamal ^talk 05:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support I looked at the editor's latest contributions and they seemed to be all good faith. I have one requests, though: Can you please use edit summaries? (I recommend switching your user settings so that you get warned when you forget it, as described here). — Sebastian 17:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support No Problem With me. Riotrocket8676 ^Talk 23:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Accepted - Since Watchdogb seems to be not around, I filled in for him and welcomed the new member. — Sebastian 02:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

PhilKnight (talk · contribs)

I'm a long term editor of the LTTE and discussion of the article is being carried out on this Wikiproject's talk page. Also per Snowolfd4's reasoning above. PhilKnight (talk) 12:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

support, always good to have an administrator on board (there was some misunderstanding about who could write on the talk page, but I think you would not need to become a member) Jasy jatere (talk) 13:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

accepted. No oppose within one week. Welcome to SLR. Jasy jatere (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! PhilKnight (talk) 18:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

carptrash (talk · contribs)

I am applying because I have never seen a group to which one must apply
So, having found one, decided to try.
I am a pretty longterm editor who usually avoids a fight,
But looking at this one, well it might be alright.
I lived in Sri Lanka for about thirteen years
But looking at the conflict is tough due to the tears.
Still, having found this, it's hard to look away
So I guess I'll just step in and ask to have my say.
Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

support. User has a serious interest in the Sri Lanka conflict and I see no evidence for disruptive behavior. — Sebastian 20:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Ahh, to heck with bureaucracy! I am very touched by this poem; this is the nicest a application we've had here. Thank you! — Sebastian 20:37, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Accepted - As there has been no objection, I will add Chamal to our member list and leave a message on the talk page. — Sebastian 03:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I forgot about this poem. I have - since I learned about the term - considered myself to be a Rhymester, and this poem represents the more serious side of that calling. I appreciate this honor. Carptrash (talk) 13:14, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Iljayas (talk · contribs)

This user is no longer active. — Sebastian 10:48, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

R5bckv (talk · contribs)

Hello everyone. I’ve been anonymously editing content (mostly grammar, nothing major) in Wikipedia for around a year now. I’ve quite a good handle on the post war situation in Sri Lanka and would like to contribute to this project.

Thank you. R5bckv (talk) 07:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

What are we looking for in new members?

I have just been asked by someone who would like to join what we are looking for in new members.

As a project, we have not decided any specific requirements for our members beyond the general Wikipedia rules, and I don't feel we should. One thing however is important: Since the purpose of the project is to bring people from both sides of the conflict together, we need to be open to editors, no matter on which side of the conflict they are as long as they support the goal of reconciliation.

When Thusiyan applied, two users opposed because they felt uncomfortable with voting for a new user, but he later was admitted without problems.[1] The main concern seemed to be sock puppets. Sock puppets are a big problem in the article space, but I don't see it as a big problem for WP:SLR, since we make decisions by consensus. If someone choses to write the same argument twice, it's no more than a bit annoying.

Do my fellow members' have any criteria that we should tell new applicants? — Sebastian 02:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• I look mainly for honesty. I may oppose if I feel that an applicant intentionally uses misleading edit summaries or make false statements about other editors. — Sebastian 02:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
• Constructive, peaceful editing. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles

FA

I'm removing the "(Shame on us)" from "Featured articles - None". While of course everybody here would be happy if our collaboration here led to a FA, this is over and above what this project has been created for - see WP:SLR#Purpose. So it's no shame. — Sebastian 19:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Chores

Dealing with disruptive editors

It is not only necessary to revert disruptions, but also to engage them in a discussion. This is necessary because we want to give these people a chance to see the benefits of reconciliation, because we want to show them that POV warring is not an option, and because we want to document that we tried our best, before we have to resort to blocking them.

Many of these POV warriors come to Wikipedia with the conviction that it is their duty to fight against what they perceive as misinformation. If their edits simply get reverted, it only strengthens their mindset that they're fighting a fair war against a reckless and impersonal enemy. When I first approach such editors, I try to be both compassionate and resolute. I think we need to be resolute about our policies, but at the same time invite them to our project to talk things over. (The user warnings for that would be usually level-1 or 2, but I feel none of these is appropriate because they lack the second part of inviting them to WT:SLR.)

When they don't respond positively to that, it generally is appropriate to issue level-3 warnings, such as {{subst:uw-unsourced3}} or {{subst:uw-npov3}}. If the user has generally been constructive, I'd prefer a handwritten message and listing in our table (unless the community decides to abolish that table, to which I would have no objection).

If that doesn't help, it is time for a block. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only project member warning such users. One user I am thinking of in particular is 76.90.65.51 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). If someone had issued a level-3 warning, it might have stopped 76. But my hunch is that 76 might have just ignored it again. In that case, I would have been able to block that user now. (If you're wondering why I'm not issuing a level-3 warning: If I did that, and then blocked the user, then it would be three consecutive actions of only me against that user. That's not what I'm here for. I want us to act as a community.) — Sebastian 19:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Archiving

This page has grown very big, with some old discussions. In the past, most of the archiving has been done by Lahiru_k, myself and Black Falcon. Lahiru_k and Black Falcon haven't been active at Wikipedia for several months, and I have long ago pleaded for these chores to be distributed more fairly. Much as I am tempted to do the archiving again, I really feel it is time for someone else to step up now. It seems like an easy task to me, but please don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions. — Sebastian 22:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Done Bro :(( Kanatonian (talk) 05:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Some of it - but there's still a lot remaining. C'mon, guys, let's get this done together! I tagged some that were from the time that I was still active here; others who have been active later would be better predisposed to check if the more recent issues are closed. — Sebastian 06:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, it's looking much better now! With regard to the three remaining chapters in the general section: Originally, I had hoped these would stir some discussion, but I have to accept that people are not interested. Because they are not just talk page contributions but rather guidelines that some of us go by, I therefore propose to change them into essays. The one by Hcberkowitz is already one (User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-TerrEssay), and we simply can move his contribution here to the talk page there. I cold turn the other two into essays as subpages under WP/SLR. I will also add a short list of these and some other general proposals (such as the one to use skype) on our householding page. Does that sound good? — Sebastian 21:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

sounds like a very good idea Jasy jatere (talk) 21:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Almost all of this has been done now. The one remaining big chunk is WT:SLR#Category:Mass murder of Sri Lankan Tamils. How about archiving this, and adding it to WP:SLR/H#Unrealized proposals? (That section could then be renamed to something like "Unrealized proposals and unresolved discussions", or "Mothballed", or some other suitable name.) — Sebastian 20:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

How about archiving that discussion into "incidents" and then creating a new head under WP:SLR/H#Unrealized proposals and name it "Unresolved discussions" and have a link to the archived part? I can do this if no one objects Watchdogb (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

No objections. I will do as proposed. Watchdogb (talk) 15:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

How to make this project less dependent on chores?

Facts:

• Chores are necessary. When they don't get done for months, it's very embarrassing for us. Or does anyone think I enjoyed writing this?
• Nobody here wants to do any chores.

How can we solve this dilemma? I think we need to think about simplifying the way we do things here. We should start a discussion at least about the following most urgent areas:

• Handling membership applications: Do members here want to maintain the membership admission process? I was strongly in favor of it when we founded this project, but that was while I still had the time to take care of it. Seeing the embarrassment it causes when nobody takes care of it, I now think it might be one of the things we need to sacrifice for the sake of simplicity.
• List of sources: Maintaining the list of sources takes some steps. Two steps that often cause problems are: (a) When discussions are closed as resolved, such as here, without actually updating the list. (b) When discussions get archived, the links from the list point to a nonexisting topic.
• Archiving: We had a bot do this for some time, but that apparently caused some other problems. Does anyone remember what the problems were? Does anone have a better solution?

There are more chores listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sri_Lanka_Reconciliation/Chores, but if we could solve the problem for these, much would have been achieved. — Sebastian 00:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I can take care of "new membership" and "Lists of Sources". Watchdogb (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I can help with the List of Sources. As for the archiving, can't we start using another bot? I don't know what the problems are that were experienced here, but is it not possible to find a bot that will avoid them? Chamal ^talk 03:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, I feel much better already! I have to leave now, but I think I can find out about the archiving bot next week. — Sebastian 04:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot, again

The problem with the bot we used in 2007 was that it archived stuff that shouldn't have been archived, e.g. the elements marked "{{Not done}}" in this diff. The Archiving interval discussion made me aware that the best way to prevent all such problems is by having the bot arcchive only sections marked "{{resolved|~~~~~}}". Does anybody know a bot that does just that? — Sebastian 19:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, it seems we found one. Here is how Dycedarg, the bot programmer, explained it to me:

[...] DyceBot archives WP:GL/I [...]. Basically what DyceBot does on WP:GL/I is a combination of three things: If a section has no templates, it will mark the section with the stale template (signed and dated) if the latest time stamp is two weeks old. If a section has a resolved template it will archive the section if the latest time stamp is three days old. If the section has a stale template it will archive the section if the latest time stamp is seven days old. I can alter the time delay for any of those three actions. I could also turn off the functionality relating to marking and archiving stale sections, and just have it archive resolved sections. If you do choose to have it do it's stuff with the stale template, any time after the bot has marked a section stale you can delete the stale template and add a new comment with timestamp, and the bot will treat it as if it never had a stale template. (For obvious reasons, if you delete the stale template without adding a new timestamp the bot will just re-add it on its next run.)

From what you've described on WP:BOTREQ it sounds like what you want is just for the bot to archive sections that have been marked resolved a certain period of time after the resolved tag is applied. I just outlined the rest of what the bot can do so you could consider whether or not it would be worth using the stale functionality on your page, and if so you could discuss this with your fellow project mates and see if they agree. When you've decided what you'd like me to set up, I'd just need the following information to do so: Whether or not you'd like the functionality regarding stale sections, the three time delays I specified above (one if you're not implementing the stame template stuff), the full title of the page(s) you'd like archived, and the archiving scheme you're using (location of the archive(s), whether archives are filled to a certain size and then a new one is made or the archive names are set by dates, and any other archive specific information you feel is relevant.) It will only take me a couple minutes to set this up for you after you send me this stuff.--Dycedarg ж 20:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

So, what do other members think? Should we just go with the standard archiving, or also with the stale marking and archiving? For standard archiving, we could agree on two days. I'm proposing twice the time we agreed for manual archiving because it will be done automatically, so we need to be a bit more cautious. If we go with the stale marking and archiving, which time limits should we give? How about 30 days for stale marking, and then another 30 days for stale archiving? That should get us over some periods of inaction. — Sebastian 01:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that 7 days for archiving resolved discussions is fair. The amount of traffic we get on SLR is not overwhelming, so that we can afford these extra days. 30/30 for stale seems sensible to me. Jasy jatere (talk) 08:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

asked for bot to be set up Jasy jatere (talk) 22:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Update Rewrite projects list

I just noticed that our list at WP:SLR/H#Rewrite projects has melted down to only one article. Thanks for that! Since we want to offer choices to people, please feel free to add some new links there. — Sebastian 03:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikibreak

Triggered by this recent event, I'm taking an indefinite wikibreak. I am, however, still available by e-mail. — Sebastian 08:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to see u take the break, hopefully u will be back at some point. Events and others don’t define us, we and our opinion of us define us. No matter what others think and do, just hold steady to ur noble intentions. I’ ve seen many kinds of people here. Some are here to play a game and I am sure they get off on the fact that they have achieved something in Wikipedia that they don’t have in real life at all. These are miserable and pitiable human beings in real life and one should have compassion for such people not anger, but others are here to contribute and ONLY you to mediate. It will be a loss for wikipedia for a mediator to leave even temporarily. Rember this, Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others. - The Buddha.Kanatonian (talk) 16:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Kanatonian. It would be hard for SLR to continue without your help; in fact, it's likely to come to pretty much a standstill. You have kept it going almost by yourself for a long time now. I'm sorry (and shocked, frankly, to see this announcement) and I hope to see you back here at some point. Chamal ^talk 14:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind notes. The reason why I'm leaving is not just momentary anger. I have long wanted this WikiProject to be able to run without me. I have never held any formal position of authority here, because I felt that this would allow everyone to keep the project going by taking on leadership. If you prefer to have some formal leadership, then you may consider electing moderators, as WP:IPCOLL does.

My original motivation for getting involved in this conflict was that I admired Nonviolent Peaceforce and nonviolent communication, and I wanted to realize these ideas at Wikipedia. While I am happy that we got this started together, I think it only can really count as a success if people carry the idea on. I feel that WP:IPCOLL and WP:IECOLL achieved that. WP:IPCOLL is flourishing without me, and WP:IECOLL is on a good track. I want SLR to be able to stand on its own feet, too. Despite Chamal’s concern, I think the project is ready to go its own way. It has both the ability and the will to do so:

Ability: Last year, when I went into semiretirement, I thought a few admonishing words would suffice, but I didn't see people following them. In autumn, some people complained that the project had drifted, and when I checked the history of an edit battle, I realized that some of our oldest members had resumed to tag team fighting (which was partly because the clarifications on reverting Black Falcon and I had attempted were not practical enough). So I came back with the intention to help the project back on track, and to prepare it for a smoother transition. I think I met both goals: The project is flourishing again; in this context I want to add that I'm very grateful that Snowolfd4, who had been very skeptical for two years, joined and constructively contributed. I also think that our new Don't re-revert! rule not only addresses the problems of tag teams and sockpuppets, but also, due to its simplicity, reduces the need for mediation. Please make good use of this rule.

Will: My ideas and expectations for this project are not shared by the majority of our other members; in fact, I'm often alone. This has become apparent in the disinterest of other members in #chores, in the discussion at WT:SLR#new class of sources, and in private communication about another issue.

I feel about project as about an adolescent son, who is ready to step into his own life and make his own mistakes, painful as that may be both to the son and the parent. I'll be happy to help, but I’m firmly decided to interfere only when I’m concretely asked for it. — Sebastian 18:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)